CREX PRATENSIS. 
Land-Rail, or Corn-Crake. 
Rallus Crex, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 261. 
Porphyria rufescens, Briss. Orn., tom. v. p. 533. 
Gallimla Crex, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 766. 
Crex pratensis, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., tom. iv. p. 470. 
Ortygonietra Crex, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., toI. xii. p. 213, pi. 26. 
There are doubtless many persons, with a taste for the natural objects around them, who are not 
aware that our avifauna is composed of birds which are stationary, as the Robin and the Wren, chance 
visitors, like the Hoopoe and the Oriole, spring migrants, like the Swallow and the Cuckoo, and 
autumn migrants, like the Fieldfare and the Redwing. The autumnal visitors which come from 
colder climates, such as Norway and Sweden, retire northward again about the time when our spring 
visitors arrive from Africa : these latter comprise, beside the Swallow and smaller sylvan species, the 
SaxkolincB, the Cuckoo, the Quail, the Night-Jar, Wryneck, Land-Rail, &c.,— the aggregate being about 
fifty species. Thus, when we lose our winter visitants, their place is supplied by the arrival, during the 
month of April, of fifty kinds of birds which had wintered elsewhere. No one of these spring visitors is 
more conspicuous than the Land-Rail, which, arriving about the second week in April, gradually spreads 
over the whole of the British Islands, and by the 1st of May is as common in Sutherlandshire as it is in our 
most southern counties ; in Ireland the movement is precisely similar, and it is even more numerous there 
than in England. Britain is by no means the most northern country which the Land-Rail annually visits ; 
for in summer it is found, hut in smaller numbers, in Iceland and Greenland. Independently of the 
localities above mentioned, the Land-Rail is found all over Europe, from north to south ; and in one or 
other part of the year, from Madeira in the Atlantic, throughout Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and as far 
eastward as Affghanistan. 
Soon after its arrival in spring, this restless migrant settles itself in some low grassy mead, field of clover 
or corn, or bed of osiers, and the male commences the harsh, kraking, monotonous call so well known to 
every one resident in the country. As soon as the female has responded to the invitation, the mated pair 
commenee their nest ; the due number of eggs having been laid in daily succession, the task of incubation 
is commenced ; and by the time the grass is ready for the scythe, the mead bespangled with the buttercup, 
and the charlock well in flower, the hatching-time has arrived, and the coal-black young are following their 
parents stealthily through the grass. These active little creatures must grow with unusual rapidity ; for 
the barley is scarcely ripe before they can fly, and the 1st of September is usually too late for the sportsman 
to benefit by more than a remnant of the thousands that must have been bred in our islands. The great 
mass of both old and young are now near the south coast, waiting for the first favourable opportunity to 
cross the water, and gradually pass southward to their winter quarters. It is true that Land-Rails are 
often killed in September, and even in October. A field of standing clover will even hold them longer ; 
and some few must stay with us the whole winter, for specimens are frequently seen in the London markets 
at Christmas, and I once picked up a dead Land-Rail, at Hawkstone, in January, which had apparently been 
killed by some bird of prey. But, as I have stated, the greater number depart in September — a circumstance 
very much to be regretted by those who are fond of sport, or who possess an epicurean taste ; for there are 
few birds better adapted to gratify it, and still fewer that are its equal. How stealthily does the Land-Rail 
thread the grass, the corn, or the standing clover! With what command does it utter its harsh call so as 
to deceive those who may be anxiously wishing to sight it ! at one moment the noise seems to he at your feet ; 
at the next it appears to be many yards distant, and so perhaps it is ; yet the boy, sitting in yonder ditch, with 
the aid of a comb and a piece of wood, calls the bird within a yard of him, and with uplifted stick strikes the 
moving grass and secures it. In the neighbourhood of London, where all is grass and dairy farms, 
Mr. Bond tells me, many are destroyed in this way. 
With regard to the flight of the Land-Rail, every sportsman will testify that it is the most laboured, 
the slowest, and the straightest of all birds’ ; yet, to our astonishment, we know that this species crosses 
wide seas, and performs a migration of greater extent than any other of our spring birds, with the 
exception, perhaps, of the Wheatear. M^e cannot but wonder how it can fly so great a distance without 
exhaustion, when to cross only a moderately-sized field seems to tire it when flushed by the dogs in the 
sporting-season ; for it invariably drops within a hundred yards, and very rarely is it forced to rise 
again. On my outward voyage to America a Land-Rail visited the ship when we were more than two 
